Can You Dig It.

Mother Nature threw us a curve ball today in an effort to remind us that we live in Upstate New York. It’s currently in the low 30s and there’s a mix of rain and snow falling.

Such a lovely day in April.

Since I woke up so cranky this morning, I was extra determined to get myself in a good mood. So on my way home from lunch I cranked up a spring-type classic track from the 60s.

“Grazin’ In The Grass” by the Friends of Distinction.

Grazin’ in the grass
It’s a gas
Baby, can you dig it!

It might not feel like spring outside, but I have spring dancing around in my head today. And this has improved my mood immensely.

Can you dig it!

4 April 2006 by Ponderings and Musings 1

Time Rant.

So yesterday half the citizens of the United States were stumbling through their Monday because they had no idea what time it was. They were told to eat when they weren’t hungry, sleep when they weren’t tired and work when they wanted to play.

All because of Daylight Saving Time.

Whomever had the brilliant idea of jockeying the clocks back and forth in the interest of “energy savings” should be shot. Has it ever occurred to these Einsteins that perhaps we are now burning more energy during daylight saving time because we are running more air conditioners to keep cool? How about Sally and Seth Suburban now jumping in their SUV monstrosity to enjoy more of the evening daylight instead of sitting home? Any chance that they are using more energy now?

Last night I had to go to bed when I wasn’t tired. Do you know what that means? I woke up this morning when I wasn’t awake and that means I’m really cranky this morning. The cat is in hysterics because his feeding schedule is off kilter, my muscles are confused because I went to the gym at the wrong time and quite frankly I think I’m constipated because my body doesn’t know when to poop.

As I’m writing this, I realize that now I’m going to be late to work because it’s later than I thought. Silly me for not knowing what time it is. was. will be.

4 April 2006 by Why. 0

Code Phrase.

Sometimes I get a little freaked out when I find out who exactly reads my blog. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a welcomed boost to my ego when I get comments and whatnot about my little ponderings and musings about life, but once in a while I’ll meet up with someone that recites verbatim something I’ve written and I have to stop and say “whoa”. Then I feel a little bit of pressure to come up with something even more witty or inspiring than previous entries and then it happens.

Brain freeze. Creative Seize. Help me, help me, please.
Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight.

I know that there’s a few people the read my blog on a daily basis. And I think that’s great. I don’t know who you are, but your little IP address pops up on my monthly report that gets e-mailed to me and I hope that you enjoy my little missives. But then someone (we’ll call her Maude) has to chime in, “say something nice about (so and so) in your blog, they love it so much.”

I just can’t do that.

It throws my chi and my creative flow in an awkward direction and then I don’t know what to write about. You see, if I’m going to do homework of sorts, I want it handed to me on purple ditto paper so that I can get high from the fumes. It’s not that I don’t like so and so or whatever, it’s just that my blog is a form of my creative expression and I can’t use it to do “shout outs”. I had enough of that back in my radio days.

“Justin says nighty-night to Amber and hopes you’ll go steady with him after lunch tomorrow.”

Yes folks, I had to say things like that on the radio on a nightly basis. It was vomit inducing. I hated that more than having to say “Thank you for shopping at Wonderful Hills” to every customer back when I was working as a cashier. Hills was a fine department store, but I can’t think of one person that could say “Wonderful Hills” with a straight face.

So if you enjoy my blog, I’m happy. If you have something to say, by all means say it. And if you want to acknowledge that you read my blog when you meet me or see me, just say “Thank you for shopping at Hills.”

3 April 2006 by Ponderings and Musings 1

Unbelievable.

After a while at work this morning, we started talking about what we had done over the weekend. It took a little while to get the conversation going as everyone was groggy due to the blasted Daylight Saving Time, but now there’s more daylight, right?

Anyways, when asked what we did over the weekend, I simply responded that Earl and I had gone to Virginia for the weekend.

“Virginia?”, they asked in unison. By the look on their faces, you would have thought I had just say, “Earl and I went to the moon and back, and since we had some extra time we made a stop at Uranus.”

I think I’ve become so whacked out that I forget that “normal” people don’t drive from Upstate New York to Northern Virginia for a ride in the country. They drive maybe 30 or 40 miles, see some cows, eat at a restaurant or go to a beach or something. And that’s just dandy! Earl and I believe our life mission is to experience as much of life as we can, so that’s what we’re doing.

Anyways, I told my co-workers about Luray Caverns and having dinner and all that. Then I listened with interest as they chimed in with their adventures over the weekend, which sounded equally as exciting but in their own way. That’s a good thing; everyone can’t be doing the same thing, it would just be too boring.

But they continued to look at me like I’m some sort of nut. That makes me proud, as I wear the title well.

3 April 2006 by Fun and Games Dept 0

Luray Caverns Pictures.


Well Earl and I are back froom the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Northern Virginia. It took only eight hours or so to get home, including a lunch stop at Red Robin in Carlisle, Pa. Now we’re settling down and getting some stuff around the house so we can hit the work week full speed ahead.

I’ve posted some pictures from this weekend’s road trip. This was my first chance to use the new iWeb, which is part of iLife ’06. They’re on my .Mac site, which you can see here. Relying on the camera flash in the cavern made it very hard to capture the beauty of it all, so I didn’t post as many pictures as I actually have.

2 April 2006 by Fun and Games Dept 1

Technology.

technology screencap
I am writing this blog entry as Earl and I are in transit on our way home from Northern Virginia. Sometimes I’m amazed at how much technology has really changed our lives and changed society in general. For example, I was able to talk to my sister today while riding between Carlisle and Harrisburg, Pa. along Interstate 81. She was in Toronto at the time. The first time I rode that stretch of road, in the summer of 1976, that conversational feat would have been unheard of. Today it’s commonplace.

Further up the road, I received a call from our friend and fellow blogger Terry. He lives in Michigan. He called to tell us that he is going to be featured Wired magazine next month, reaching the desired übergeek status. Congratulations to Terry!

As I’m typing this blog entry on the PowerBook, I am making changes to our planned trip next month out west and tweaking our route. While doing that, I am tracking our progress along Interstate 81 via GPS. At this moment we are 1503 feet above sea level, with 169.6 miles to go until we reach home. Our expected time of arrival is 18:03 (6:03 p.m.). We are traveling at 70 MPH.

Isn’t technology grand?

2 April 2006 by Geek 0

The Shenandoah Valley, Virginia.

Earl and I jumped in the Jeep bright and early this morning and headed south on Interstate 81. We headed to the Shenandoah Valley in northern Virginia, ending up at Luray Caverns appropriately located in Luray, Va. These are the largest caverns in the east and I believe the third largest in the United States. Luray Caverns span 47 acres and is a fascinating spectacle to behold with a full spectrum of color to be found in this natural wonder. The tour was about an hour long and took us over 100 feet below the surface. While we were at Luray Caverns, we also enjoyed lunch and tried our hand at the Garden Maze. I’ll be posting pictures when we get home tomorrow night.

After leaving Luray Caverns, we headed north on the famous Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. A breathtakingly scenic drive, we are planning to drive this route again in the fall when the leaves are changing.

We then headed to our room at the Hampton Inn and caught a quick nap, since we must have had too much fresh air or something and were both feeling a little tired.

After recharging our batteries a little bit, we went met up with Thom, a fellow blogger that I’ve chatted back and forth with for the past five years or so. I’ve always been a fan of his blog and it was quite exciting to put a face with the words. We had a great dinner at local tavern type place and enjoyed some great conversation. I hope that we have the opportunity to meet up again, it was a good time. Plus, he has a very wise choice of haircut.

Now Earl and I are getting ready to call it a night. We have a bit of a drive to get home at a reasonable hour tomorrow, but it has been a fully enjoyable day.

1 April 2006 by Fun and Games Dept 2

Carlisle, Pa.

Earl and I have hit the road for the weekend and have decided to call it a night in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. This is a crossroads of sorts in the central part of the state, as we are at a Holiday Inn where Interstate 81 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike cross.

We are going to continue south for three or four hours tomorrow morning and check out the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Our primary destination is Luray Caverns, on the recommendation of the manager of my group at work.

Earl and I briefly tossed around the idea of checking out the motel bar, but decided to just call it a night and hit the hay.

I love being on the road.

31 March 2006 by Fun and Games Dept 1

Change of Time.

You’d think that after 37 years on this planet I’d be used to this by now. But I’m not. My life is about to be thrown into a turmoil in which it’ll take me a month to recover from.

Daylight Saving Time begins this weekend.

For as many years as I’ve had this blog (I think it’s almost 5), I’ve complained about Daylight Saving Time. My body doesn’t like it. My mind doesn’t like it. It throws me out of synch with the planet’s natural rhythm. I’d rather fly to Hong Kong and back and endure the jet lag than deal with this time saving nonsense.

I’m always amused when people say we have Daylight Saving Time to make the day longer. “The sun is out longer”, people sometimes say. “Ring ring”. Here that, it’s the clue phone? People. The day is still 24 hours, the sun has not slowed down it’s path across the heavens. We just monkey around with the clock so that it seems like it’s light later.

“The farmers love it because their crops get more light.” To that I say, “shut the fsck up you idiot.” First of all, farmers hate DST as much as I do because Bessie and Henna Hen can’t tell what time it is and they get impatient. Milk and egg production actually goes down for a bit. Secondly, the corn field has no idea what time it is and as I mentioned before, it’s the same amount of light in the overall scheme of things.

So now I’ll have to drive to the Central Time Zone as much as possible to feel back to normal for the next several months. And don’t get me started on that whole Indiana time zone mess that’s going on.

I apologize if I sound cranky. My alarm clock is going off right now because it thinks it’s Monday.

31 March 2006 by Why. 0

No Deposit. No Return.

This is what I get for marrying a man from out of state. New York has a container deposit law on selected beverage containers. If it’s a beer or soda can or bottle, we pay five cents a piece on top of the selling price and then we are suppose to take them back to the store to get a refund. There’s a rule that applies; a store does not have to accept a can or bottle if it doesn’t sell that specific type of beverage. So even if Hannaford sells Pepsi products, they don’t have to accept 24 ounce cans if they only sell 16 ounce cans.

The other rule that Earl doesn’t quite get is that this only applies to beer and soda. It doesn’t apply to any other beverage. Water bottles, wine bottles and bottles of the nasty Sunny Delight are not returnable, they are to go into the recycling bin.

I don’t agree with the container law. It was a good idea back in 1984 before all the recycling programs of today, but with all the sorting, spindling and mutilating you have to do of garbage before it goes out to the curb, it seems silly to return these select bottles and cans when they could just be recycled.

I tend to get OCD about things like this. I have a separate bin for returnables. I’m considering putting up signs that say “beer and soda cans and bottles only”. I think Earl takes great delight in putting non returnable stuff in the returnable bin.

“Sweetheart, water bottles are recyclable, not returnable.”

“We don’t have returnable bottles in Pennsylvania.”

“I understand that, but you’ve lived in New York since 1995 and you’re a very intelligent man, I would think that you’ve grasped this concept by now.”

(big sigh), “New York”, he responds with a tsk tsk tsk motion of his head.

He then throws a milk bottle into the returnables to make his point.

30 March 2006 by Love. 0

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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